


your beautiful eyes

by LFTPD



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: David Rose is a good husband, Gender Identity, Introspection, Kink Exploration, Lingerie, M/M, Makeup
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-28
Updated: 2020-11-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:21:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27755260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LFTPD/pseuds/LFTPD
Summary: Patrick had washed his face after the show. He’d known David had a vision of how his engagement announcement would go, and that vision didn’t include Patrick in full Emcee makeup. He hadn’t had time to completely clean it off, though, and when he stares at himself in the mirror he can see the last remnants of his eyeliner still on his face. It’s… It’s interesting.
Relationships: Patrick Brewer/David Rose
Comments: 56
Kudos: 226





	your beautiful eyes

After Mrs Rose finds out that her movie’s been shelved and collapses onto the floor, the party comes to a quick end. Patrick offers to stay and help clean up, but David quickly ushers him out. Patrick had thought that David would come back to his apartment with him—they were newly engaged, after all—but David says his mom needs him so Patrick says he understands. They’re about to spend their entire lives together—and that thought still makes Patrick giddy—so Patrick figures they can handle one night apart.

What it means, though, is that when he gets back to his apartment and gets ready for bed, he’s on his own. He heads straight to the bathroom to wash off the dried sweat from the show, and that’s when he notices his reflection in the mirror.

He’d washed his face after the show, of course. He’d known David had a vision of how his engagement announcement would go, and that vision didn’t include Patrick in full Emcee makeup. He hadn’t had time to completely clean it off, though, and when he stares at himself in the mirror he can see the remnants of his eyeliner still on his face. It’s… It’s interesting.

He’d seen it before, of course, but that had felt different. That was the Emcee’s full face of stage makeup underneath the lights of the dressing room; this was Patrick standing in his own tiny bathroom wearing eyeliner. It reminds him of the pop-punk phase one of his cousins had when they were in high school, he decides. The eyeliner reminds him of the guy from The Killers or Panic! At the Disco, and that must be why he finds it so intriguing. Patrick scrubs the eyeliner from his face, takes his shower, and doesn’t think about it for the rest of the night. 

He doesn’t think about it until the next day when he’s standing in front of his mirror after the performance. It’s been a few minutes and he still hasn’t made any moves to wash it off, and Patrick really can’t understand why. He feels… He feels _something_ , staring at himself in eyeliner. He’s just not sure what it is. 

He hadn’t latched the bathroom door behind him—their agreed-upon sign that they want privacy—so David doesn’t knock when he steps inside the bathroom.

“Oh, did you need help with that?” David asks, and then he’s pulling some cold cream out of the cabinet. “I should bring home the makeup remover we stock,” he says as he opens the jar. “Especially if you’re going to stick with the theatre thing. The last thing you want is to break out before a show, even if you’re usually one of those lucky people who never get acne.”

David discusses the importance of always washing off his makeup before he goes to bed, and then gives him a mini-lecture about how he really shouldn’t be sharing makeup with the rest of the cast if he wants to avoid eye infections. Patrick nods along dutifully and ignores the little pang he feels in his chest as David wipes his face clean. But he thinks about it for the rest of the show’s run, thinks about it every time he gets a glance of himself in one of the mirrors backstage. 

He doesn’t say anything to David about it yet. He can’t put the feeling into words, even in his own head. He’d worn makeup for shows in high school, and even a few in college, and it had never felt like anything special. What’s so different about it now? He wonders if it’s because he knows he’s gay now, knows himself in a way that he hadn’t back in high school. Maybe it’s not that the makeup makes him feel any different than it did before. Maybe it’s just that he’s allowing himself to think about it more than he’d ever let himself think about it before. He figures that once the show is over it’ll go away, and he’ll stop thinking about it.

When the show has been over for weeks, and all his attention should be on wedding planning but the thoughts still keep coming back, Patrick can admit to himself that it may have been bigger than he was letting himself believe. He thinks about bringing it up to David a few times, but he never quite knows what to say. Is he avoiding the topic because he’s embarrassed? Is there some lingering internalized homophobia lurking inside of him that’s keeping him from getting the words out? Patrick doesn’t think so, but he still can’t manage to talk to David about it.

The thing is, he thinks, that David’s always been so confident about the way he presents himself to the world. He wears whatever he wants and he doesn’t care about the fact that no one in Schitt’s Creek really understands it. He weaves a beautiful blend of masculine and feminine, and he walks into every room like he owns it. Patrick loves that about David; it’s one of the first things that had attracted him to David, back when he came into Ray’s asking for help with his business license. David _knows himself_. He doesn’t have to guess, doesn’t have to wonder what things mean. Patrick thinks he might be a little jealous of that. Maybe that’s why it’s so hard to start the conversation with David. 

In the final rush to the wedding, Patrick doesn’t think about the eyeliner at all. The Roses are moving, and then Patrick and David are moving into their new house, and Patrick is basking in newlywed bliss for months. Being married to David feels like so much more than dating or being engaged had. He’s never been so happy in his life. 

And then one slow day in the store, while Patrick’s filling the time by replenishing their stock of lipstick, the feeling comes back. He’s not thinking of anything in particular, just trying to keep each tube’s label angled out in the way that David likes. But his fingers keep stumbling on the tubes, and for the first time in months, his mind flashes back to lipstick he’d worn as the Emcee. It had been very subtle; just barely there to give his lips a little definition against the paleness of his face, Mrs Rose had said. It hadn’t looked like he was wearing lipstick in the way that he’d been wearing eyeliner, but Patrick’s still thinking about it now. He’s remembering how it felt to slide the tube over his lips. It had been cheap, Alexis had said, frowning down at the tube when he’d set it on the counter of their dressing room. It felt cakey against his lips, and he’d had to blot them so that they didn’t feel so sticky when he sang. He hadn’t had much of an opinion on it. 

Now, looking down at each colour of lipstick, he thinks about it again. These are all bright colours, oranges, pinks, bold reds and deep purples. David picked the vendor, so Patrick is sure they’re better quality than the one he’d used in the show. What would they feel like against his lips? He’d always liked kissing Rachel more when her lips were a little silky, even if he’d complained about having to wipe her lipstick off of his face later. Would wearing it himself be the same?

He picks up one of the testers and holds it a little closer to his face. He uncaps it, slowly rolling the lipstick up and glancing at the bright pink surface of it. What would it look like on his skin? He’s seen David help customers with it before. He’d roll the tester against the skin on their hand, chatting with them about warm and cool undertones, and they’d almost always walk out of the store with a few lipsticks in hand. Patrick could do that now, he realizes. He could call out for David and ask him to help him find a good colour. David wouldn’t make a big deal of it. He might tease a little, but he’d stop once he realized that Patrick was serious about wanting to try it. He’d be supportive and kind, and Patrick knows that, but he still caps the lipstick and puts it back down. He’s not ready to have that conversation. Not yet. 

He’s not ready to admit that there are still things he doesn’t know about himself. Thoughts of what he’d look like wearing lipstick are filling his head in the same way that thoughts of men filled his head when he was first coming to terms with his sexuality. It scares him a little; how are there still these big things to discover about himself? Can’t he be done with the self-discovery already? 

If he told David, David would have questions. Patrick wouldn’t have answers. He’s not sure if this is… if this is some sort of gender expression thing, or a kink thing, or some combination of both. It shouldn’t matter. He knows that it shouldn’t matter and that ultimately, David won’t care about the reason. It’s enough that Patrick is interested and wants to try it, and David won’t push it past that. Patrick still can’t bring himself to say anything. 

But David knows him so well, so of course he notices when Patrick keeps going back to the lipstick display, day after day.

“Honey, I think they’re all lined up already. You’ve fixed them three times today,” David says from behind the counter. His voice is fond, but Patrick still feels himself tense up like he’s been caught with a hand down his pants. 

“I thought the last kid who came in might have bumped them,” Patrick says, knowing that will start David on a twenty-minute long rant about how people really shouldn’t bring their children into high-end boutiques, and the conversation shifts. After that, Patrick tries to be more subtle. He doesn’t go back over to the lipstick display. He tries not to even look at it for too long. 

Then one day David’s out on a vendor run, and the store’s been slow all morning. It’s raining heavily, so there’s no chance of anyone lurking outside on the street. Patrick doesn’t plan on it, but the next thing he knows, he’s walking to the display. He picks up a tinted lip balm instead of one of the lipsticks he’s been eyeing, taking the first one he sees without paying much attention to colour. It’s dumb, and he knows it’s dumb, but something about the lip balm feels a little bit less like makeup than the lipstick does, and that makes it a little less scary. That distinction feels important to him right now. Even still, his heart is racing as he slips it in his pocket, feeling almost as if he’s shoplifting. 

He’s not shoplifting, of course. He goes to the counter and pays for it. He just uses cash, because he’s not ready to have that conversation with David. Not yet. 

By the time David’s back, Patrick has the lip balm safely tucked away in his bag. It stays in his bag for a few days, deep underneath his hiking clothes. He’s not exactly trying to hide it, but at the same time, he knows that David would never look there. Even though he doesn’t use it, it makes his stomach flip every time he thinks about it, every time his fingers brush against it as he’s pulling something else out of his bag. 

He waits until his day off. David’s at the store and the only thing Patrick has planned for the day is watching the Blue Jays game and doing some laundry. He pulls the tube out of his bag, and his heart starts pounding again. It’s too much. It’s overwhelming, so he sets it down and goes back to the laundry. He thinks about that tube waiting for him all morning as he irons button-ups and folds jeans. He thinks about the lipstick back at the store, thinks about what he’d look like wearing it with the rest of his clothing. He would look ridiculous, he thinks. Lipstick would look so out of place with the rest of his clothing. 

He can’t talk himself out of trying it anyway. He glances at the time, makes sure he won’t get walked in on, and then makes his way back to the bathroom. He swatches the lip balm against his hand like David does. He looks down at it, pinkish purple and a little sparkly against his skin. He reads the name of the colour on the tube, thinks about how much Ted would love the name _Fuschia-ristic_. Then he thinks about Ted walking in and seeing Patrick wearing it, and he has to sit down for a little bit. 

When he’s feeling a little calmer, he takes a deep breath, stands in front of the mirror, and slides it on his lips. He pops them together the way that he’d seen Rachel do so many times. When he slides his lips together, it doesn’t really feel that different from wearing chapstick. If he didn’t look in the mirror, he wouldn’t know he hadn’t just grabbed his normal tube of chapstick. 

But he does look in the mirror, and he still can’t explain it, but he thinks he likes what he sees. He stares for a while, trying to figure out what it is about it that he likes so much. He’s not hard, not anywhere close to aroused. So maybe it’s not sexual, and that’s a little scary. A kink is something that he can wrap his head around. A kink is something he’s used to; David has helped him discover so many in the last few years. Discovering that he liked bondage or edging didn’t actually mean anything; it didn’t change the idea of himself that he’s built in his head. 

Does liking the way he looks in lipstick—no, tinted lip balm, his brain helpfully points out—mean something about his gender? Does he want it to? David would say that it didn’t need to. He can be cis and still like makeup, just like David’s cis and wears skirts. Underneath his general fear of the unknown, Patrick thinks he wouldn’t mind if the lip balm _did_ mean something about his gender. The upsetting thing, he thinks, isn’t _what_ it means. The upsetting thing is not _knowing_ what it means, and not having any idea how he’s supposed to figure that out. 

He keeps the lip balm on for a few hours, going into the bathroom to look at it again and again until it’s mostly faded. He picks up the tube and goes to hide it back in his bag, but he can’t quite do it. He’s promised himself that he would stop hiding things from David. Each time he’d hid something from David—first with Rachel, and then with his parents—he’d ended up hurting him. He won’t do that again. They’re married now, and that makes it feel even more important to be honest. And, he thinks, hiding the lip balm means that it’s a Big Deal. Patrick doesn’t want this to be a Big Deal.

So he puts the lip balm in their medicine cabinet on the shelf reserved for his things. It’s not hidden, but it’s not on display either. David might not even notice it, Patrick thinks. 

Of course, David notices. It’s later that night, and it’s been so long since he’d put the lip balm on that Patrick’s almost forgotten about it. He’s curled up in bed with a book when David comes out of their ensuite, trying to get through a few more chapters before they turn in for the night.

“Is the lipstick yours?” David asks, and Patrick freezes. He knows that David’s teasing him, mostly because he’d called it lipstick even when weeks ago he’d heard David go on a long rant to a customer about the differences between lip stain, lipstick, lip liner, and tinted lip balm. “Because I’m sorry, honey, but that really isn’t your colour.”

“Um,” Patrick swallows, feeling his ears start to burn. He can’t quite manage to look up from his book, definitely can’t manage to meet David’s eyes. “That’s, um, that’s—”

He can’t get the words out. He’s not even sure what the words _are_. His heart is pounding and his hands are sweaty where they’re gripping the edges of his book, his knuckles white with how tight his grip has become. 

David saves him, because David always saves him. 

“Warpaint for one of your baseball games, I’m guessing,” David says. His voice is soft, clearly reading the tension in Patrick’s shoulders and teasing him to give him an out. “Or wait, I know, did you get it to write horrible things about the girl who slept with your boyfriend on the bathroom mirror of the girls’ room? Because really, Patrick, it’s 2019 and we’re better than that.”

It’s enough to break the tension, and Patrick lets out a laugh. 

“Maybe I stole it back from Alexis after she stole from the store one too many times,” Patrick says, glancing up at David. They both know it’s not the truth, but it’s clear that David’s not bothered by the fact that Patrick’s not ready to tell the truth yet. David keeps teasing until they both relax, and then he slips into bed, grabs the book on his side table, and they don’t talk about it for the rest of the night. 

After an hour or so Patrick reaches out to turn off his lamp, and they curl together as they go to sleep. Patrick’s wrapped around David as the big spoon, his face tucked up against David’s neck as they settle in. His mind circles back to the lip balm—to David _knowing_ about the lip balm. In the dark, he feels a little more brave. David’s breathing has slowed, and Patrick’s not entirely sure that he’s still awake, but he starts talking anyway. 

“It’s mine,” he says, his voice barely above a whisper. He squeezes his eyes shut, curls his arms around David a little tighter for reassurance. “I bought it from the store a while back because I wanted to know what it would feel like.”

David’s silent for a moment, clearly giving Patrick the space to say more. When he doesn’t, David rolls around to face Patrick, meeting his eyes in the dark. 

“Hey,” David says, cupping Patrick’s face in his palm. “Honey, that’s fine. You know that’s fine, right?”

Patrick nods slightly, feeling his face flush against David’s palm, but he doesn’t look away. “I didn’t know how to talk about it,” he admits. “I still don’t know how to talk about it. But it’s not—it’s not a big deal.”

“We can talk or not talk, whatever you need,” David says, and he closes the gap between their faces to give Patrick a soft kiss. “Whatever you need, but I’m always here.”

Patrick nods, blinking back emotion. He tucks his face back against David’s neck, curls closer in David’s arms, and they fall asleep. 

He starts wearing it more often on his days off. He gets used to the way it feels to put it on, to the way it looks whenever he glances in the mirror. Every time he sees himself reflected against the silver of their refrigerator or glass of a window, he feels something warm and happy uncurl in his chest. He thinks maybe that it makes him feel pretty. He’s never been called pretty before, he doesn’t think. He’s called David pretty before; he calls David pretty and beautiful all the time. But David always uses words like _handsome_ or _gorgeous_ or _stunning_ for him. That’s never bothered Patrick before, but now he’s starting to wonder if maybe that’s what this is all about. Maybe he wants an excuse to feel pretty. 

They don’t talk about it again, but a week or two later, he opens the medicine cabinet to find another tube of tinted lip balm. It’s a different colour, closer to red than the one he’s been wearing, and he thinks about David’s comment about it not being his colour. He thinks about how nervous he’d been, weeks before, about asking David to find him the right colour for his skin tone. But he hadn’t had to ask, because David had done it for him, quietly supporting him the way he always has. Patrick chokes back emotion, closes the cabinet, and goes to find David so that he can kiss the hell out of him. David doesn’t ask him what that’s about, but Patrick’s sure they both know. 

A few days after that, when David gets home from a night out with Stevie, Patrick’s wearing the new colour. He hadn’t quite meant for David to see it, but he hadn’t meant for him _not_ to see it either. David pauses for a moment when he sees Patrick, and in that moment, Patrick feels like he can’t breathe. Then David’s eyebrows raise, and he smiles. 

“Don’t you look pretty,” David says as he takes off his coat. Patrick means to make a joke, to say something to undercut just how much that comment made him feel. What comes out instead is an embarrassing sound that he’s never made outside of the bedroom, something nearer to a whimper than he’s willing to admit. David’s eyes widen, and his grin gets sharper, and then they’re stumbling to the bedroom, pulling at clothes. By the time they make it to bed, most of the lip balm has rubbed off onto David’s neck, but David keeps calling Patrick pretty and Patrick isn’t complaining. 

“I don’t think it’s a gender thing,” Patrick tells David afterwards. His head is resting against David’s chest, and they’re both still breathing a little hard. He needs to get up and get a washcloth to clean them both up, but right now getting the words out feels more important. 

“Okay,” David says. He brings up his hand, stroking Patrick’s hair softly, giving him space to think.

“I don’t think it’s a sex thing either,” Patrick adds. He knows that what they just did might make it seem like it was. “I just… I just like it.”

“It’s okay to just like things,” David says. Patrick can hear the smile in his voice. “You know about my candy raver phase,” he adds after a moment. “I wore _a lot_ of eyeliner during that phase, but I played around with makeup in general when I was in high school too. It took me a while to figure out who I was. What I liked.”

“I like thinking of it like that,” Patrick says. He feels a little relieved at the reminder that David hasn’t always been so sure of himself. “Playing around with makeup. Like it doesn’t have to be so serious.” 

“It doesn’t,” David agrees, pressing a kiss to Patrick’s temple. “Now go get a washcloth before we stick together,” he says, giving Patrick’s ass a swat. 

A few days later, he finds a new toiletry bag on the counter in their bathroom. It’s one that they sell at the store, with a swirling RA and their logo on one side, so it’s obvious who’s left it there. He unzips it slowly, and he’s not surprised when he sees a lot of things that they carry at the store. Bronzer, highlighter, mascara, eye shadow, and a few things that he doesn’t recognize. There’s a receipt tucked in the bottom of the bag, and that makes his heart squeeze. Of course David would know that Patrick’s first thought would be whether he’d just taken it off the shelves. David knows him so well.

He’s touched, and a little excited as he reads the label on each new item. But it’s also overwhelming, and he doesn’t think he’s ready to do anything more with it. So once he’s gone through it all he tucks it away on his shelf, and he finishes getting ready for bed. When he slips next to David, he presses a kiss to his shoulder and tells him thank you, and David just smiles back. 

He goes through the bag again the next time he has a free day. He googles all the things he doesn’t recognize, and then he finds himself watching makeup tutorials on YouTube. He watches one after the other, turning on autoplay and letting them roll over one after the next. He does a double-take when the first man shows up, and after that, he only clicks on thumbnails of men doing their makeup. 

Patrick is horrible at it at first. His hands shake, and he can’t draw winged eyeliner to save his life, despite all of the tips and techniques his videos show. Contouring is harder than it looks, and he doesn’t have half of the brushes that the YouTubers use. He gives up after an hour or so and washes his face, shoving the toiletry bag back into the cabinet with frustration. Patrick hates being bad at things. 

He also hates giving up, though, so he keeps trying. Through trial and error, and a lot of practice, he slowly learns what he likes. He learns how makeup can make him feel a lot of different things, confident or sexy or put together or pretty. Some of the more dramatic looks make him feel a little campy, a little like he’s wearing theatre makeup with how bold they are. He doesn’t think he likes makeup as an everyday thing, but he won’t deny that it’s fun to play around with. It makes him feel good, and he likes having another hobby. Music has always been his way of expressing himself, but he’s starting to understand how makeup could be a way of expressing himself too. It’s interesting to think about, at least.

David walks in on him playing around with makeup a few times. He’s always casual about it, but there’s a warmth in his eyes that he can’t hide. He’ll wrap his arms around Patrick’s waist, careful not to jostle his hands, and tell him about how this look sort of evokes Hailee Steinfeld at the Met Gala. Sometimes he’ll give Patrick’s shoulder a squeeze and tell him that his eyeliner is getting better, that his lines are looking cleaner, that he’s nailed some technique that he’s been struggling with for a while. It’s not a big thing; it feels the same as the way David reacts whenever he walks in on Patrick playing guitar. 

Patrick always washes everything off of his face before he leaves the bathroom, but he knows it wouldn’t be a big deal if he didn’t. 

It doesn’t look quite as ridiculous to wear a full face of makeup with his button-ups and jeans as he’d thought it would, but wearing makeup still makes him start to think a little bit deeper about the clothes he wears. He’d grown up going to private schools, so he’d never had to think too much about what he wore. He’d pulled on the same khaki pants, white button-ups, and navy vests for the entirety of his education. When he wasn’t in his school clothes, he was in his baseball or hockey gear, trading one uniform for another. He’d never understood how excited his friends were for dress down days, and he’d never been the type of kid to change once he got home from school. He’d stay in his uniform until dinner most of the time unless his mother forced him into the shower before that. 

When he’d left for college, he’d missed the ease of having uniforms. He’d felt lost when it came time to pick out his own clothes every day. He wore a blue button-up on a date with Rachel once and she complimented it, and soon he had an entire wardrobe full of nearly identical shades of blue. Business casual started to feel like its own sort of uniform. It was easy, and he liked not having to think about it, but was it him? Were his clothes _him_ the way that David’s clothing was him? 

He’s ironing one of David’s skirts one day, careful strokes of the iron on each crease, and he feels the same flicker of curiosity that he’d felt staring at the lipsticks. It’s an idle curiosity, not nearly as panicked and built up as the other had been, but it’s still there. So he turns off the iron, shoves off his jeans, and steps into the skirt. It doesn’t quite fit, so he holds it up on his waist as he walks to the nearest full-length mirror. The air on his legs feels strange, and he’s not used to the feeling of his thighs rubbing together as he walks. He feels exposed, almost naked in a way that’s really not that comfortable. 

He looks in the mirror, and it feels like he’s wearing a costume, like he’s dressing up as David rather than just being Patrick wearing a skirt. The skirt hangs too low, hitting him midcalf in a way that makes him look shorter than he really is. He doesn’t like how his legs look, pale with uneven smatterings of hair. David looks so much better when he wears this skirt, with his tan legs and bold boots and sometimes knee-high socks. David looks confident in this skirt. Patrick just looks uncomfortable. 

So he hangs up the skirt and puts his jeans back on, and goes back to the laundry. He’s smiling as he starts up again, and it takes him a moment to figure out why. He’s grateful, he thinks. He’s grateful that he’d had the opportunity to learn something else about himself. Skirts aren’t for him. He’s fine with the way that he dresses, he decides, even if it’s not as intentional as the way that David dresses. He doesn't need an overhaul of his wardrobe. He doesn’t feel the same way that David does about clothing, and that’s okay.

Although, he thinks a little while later, the idea of wearing lingerie doesn’t _not_ do it for him. He does another google search, his pupils blown wide as he looks through pages of men in lacy underwear. _That_ might be mostly a sex thing, he thinks with a grin, and then goes to find David to tell him about it. David fills their cart with a dozen different things, and they bicker about how much money they’re both willing to spend until Patrick’s talked him down to only three different pairs of underwear. 

He’s the first to get to the package when it comes in the mail, so he’s able to slip a lacy white pair of panties under his jeans without David noticing. He loves how soft they feel against his dick, loves the smooth way the fabric rubs against the rough denim of his jeans.

He really loves the face David makes when he pushes Patrick’s jeans down his hips later that night.

“Holy fuck, Patrick,” David groans as he drops to his knees. He sucks wetly over the head of Patrick’s cock through the fabric, and Patrick lets his head fall back with a groan. “Look at how pretty you are,” David murmurs, his breath hot against his cock. When that gets a reaction out of him, David grins up at him wickedly. He pushes Patrick down on their bed, kissing down his body, rocking against the bulge in his panties, and telling him again and again just how pretty he thinks Patrick is. 

Patrick comes in the panties, but David promises him that he knows how to salvage them. He rinses them in cold water, pretreating them in the sink while Patrick changes the sheets. Afterwards, they curl up in bed together, and Patrick thanks him. David’s used to Patrick thanking him in bed by now, so he just nods sleepily and presses a kiss to Patrick’s shoulder.

“No, I mean it,” Patrick says, and his voice is serious enough to make David force his eyes open. “I love how I can explore things like this with you,” Patrick says after a beat. Because yes, tonight was about Patrick exploring a new kink, but they both know that it wasn’t only about kink. There’s something else there, something that Patrick might never have felt safe enough to find out without David. 

“Exploring things with you is a favourite pastime of mine,” David smiles, and then he really does fall asleep. 

One day while they’re both getting ready for work, Patrick’s eyes fall on the tinted lip balm in the medicine cabinet. He feels like wearing it, so he grabs it and twists off the top. He doesn’t think much about it, doesn’t think about the fact that no one but David has ever seen him in it. He doesn’t worry about what people will think when they walk into the store and look over at Patrick. He just feels like wearing it, so he puts it on. David gives his shoulder a little squeeze, and then he asks Patrick to pass him a towel and they move on with their day.

He gets a few compliments, a few questions about the shade, and they end up selling three tubes of the same lip balm.

It’s a good day.


End file.
